Darkness

The photographs in this post are night landscapes. Click on a photograph to view a larger version.
View: Old Chinatown, Riverside, California.

View: East. From March Air Museum.

View: East toward Riverside and Box Springs Mountain.

View: East. Shamel Ash branches in my front yard.

View: West toward Corona from Mount Rubidoux.

View: Jupiter, Venus and Luna. From my front yard.

View: West. Joshua Tree, California.

View: West toward Corona from Mount Rubidoux.

View: Venus. South from my yard.

View: Landing lights on March Air Force Base.

View: East toward Moreno Valley, California.

View: West. Joshua Tree National Monument.

View: East from March Air Museum.

View: Thumbnail moon from Riverside, California.

View: East. Mojave Desert.

View: East from my front yard.

View: West from the San Bernardino Mountains.

View: East from Orangecrest area of Riverside, California.

Daylight

The images in this post are of landscape photographs made in daylight. Click on a photograph to view a larger version.

This cordillera, this chain of mountains is a view of the the San Bernardino Mountains from an overlook near Rim of the World.

This photo and the following one were taken from the Ghost Rocks scenic viewpoint on Interstate 70 in western Utah. I was riding my motorcycle, an '06 Road Star from Southern California to Long Island. I didn't take the time to stop and make many photos on that trip, but the desert landscape in that area was so appealing that I had to make an exception.

This photo was made on one of my morning hikes on Mount Rubidoux in Riverside, California. This western view is toward the cities of Corona and Norco.

This is a view toward the north in Kansas. I was riding back home from New York on a secondary road and took a break at the intersection of this dirt road. I liked the way that the dirt road dissappeared at the horizon under the layer of clouds that echoed the flatness of the land.

This is a view to the east on Lone Pine Canyon Road. The road winds up Lone Pine Canyon from Cajon in the east, and ends in the back streets of the mountain town of Wrightwood.

This is a view to the east from a rest stop on I-80 in Nebraska. The clouds foreshadowed a rainstorm that I rode into a half hour later. The rainstorm lasted the better part of three days, long enough for me to begin thinking that I would have been better equipped for travel with a canoe.

A group of clouds overflying the San Bernardino Mountains. In the center of the photo is a shadowy hint of Mount San Jacinto, approximately 40 miles away.

I made this photo "from the saddle" while riding around the "back" side of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. There was a slow, tight left turn at this point in the road. With automobiles rounding the curve in front and behind me, I raised the camera, pointed it in the direction I thought might be right and pressed the shutter while keeping my eyes on the road (and automobile) ahead.

Note that George Washington's profile can be seen in the center of the photo.

This is another view to the west toward Corona from Mount Rubidoux. That's the Santa Ana River which snakes its way down to Orange County, and eventually, the Pacific Ocean.

Mist rises from the water in the Santa Ana River. Again, from Mount Rubidoux.

Dawn. View east from Riverside toward Mount San Gorgonio in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Shoulders of multiple ridges in the San Bernardinos plunge into a canyon.

"God light" in reverse. Light streams upward from a cloud bank. View from my front yard.

This is the Amboy Crater near Amboy, California. This volcanic cone is surrounded by black lava flows and is a roadside attraction. The tan areas on the lava are windblown sand. The volcano was last active approximately 10 million years ago.

Wyoming. From a secondary road. I was riding south toward Colorado, away from a rainstorm that was supposed to inundate northern Wyoming and South Dakota for several days. I like the way it looked with the windmill and the red aggregate of the asphalt road, so I stopped to get the photograph.

Joshua Tree

Because my daughter Megan (see the blog of mab) would be in Riverside for her 10th High School Reunion, and had Saturday morning and afternoon free, we planned on loading the saddlebags with our cameras and heading for Route 2, the Angelus Crest Highway, which opened up a week previously after four years of closure, making it possible to ride from Wrightwood to La Canada through the Angelus Mountains. The weather didn't cooperate with our plan for the mountain ride, however. It would be overcast and somewhat cool according to the forecast, and would probably rain in that area.

The weather in the Joshua Tree area looked much better. The day's temperature would peak at 85 Farenheit and the sky would be clear east of the San Gorgonio Pass. In addition, the ever-present winds in the pass would not rise above 12 miles per hour during the day. We quickly changed our route plan and rode toward the desert.

As usual for this time of year (last weekend of May) there was a "marine layer" shrouding the Inland Empire in the morning, a cloud laying on the land that creates an overcast sky, which typically burns off in the afternoon. We rode out of the overcast by the time we were in the San Gorgonio Pass and the sky became progressively clearer as we approached Joshua Tree, the town north of the National Monument.

The photographs in this post were all made with a Nikon D200 and within the borders of the Joshua Tree National Monument. I chose them from aproximately 160 that I made that day. I believe they give a feel for the terrain and features of the area. Click on any photograph to view a larger version.

A dead Joshua tree.

Close view of a Cholla cactus.

Mount Rubidoux Gallery

This gallery contains photographs I made from and of Mount Rubidoux, in Riverside California. With one exception they were all made before or around sunrise with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01. The first photograph was made at sundown with a Nikon D200. Click on a photograph to view a larger version.

Other photos that I made of Mount Rubidoux are in a short slide show on the Friends of Mount Rubidoux web site at http://www.mt-rubidoux.org/. Those photos, because they were made largely during full daylight are more suited to the Friends' purposes.